


Interlude: Will

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: In The Bubble [11]
Category: Glee
Genre: Early in Canon, Everybody Auditions for Glee Club, Gen, McKinley's Power Posse, Queen Mercedes, Why Have No Baritones When You Can Have Two?, Will Schuester Is Actually a Good Teacher in This Verse, auditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-03 23:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will thinks his auditions are going poorly, then McKinley's Power Posse arrives to fill the ranks from baritone to countertenor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude: Will

Will has such high hopes when he posts the sign-up sheet for glee club auditions. After a week, though, there are only three names on it. Two are freshmen, in one of his Spanish I sections, and the third is a sophomore. Will consoles himself that the sign makes it very clear that people don’t _have_ to sign up in order to audition. They can walk in, and that’s what Will hopes will happen. 

The sophomore girl that signed up, Rachel Berry, insists on going first _and_ on staying in the auditorium, muttering about seeing her new fellow glee club members, and possibly something about assessing her competition for solos. Her rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ is lovely and technically more perfect than anything Will thought he would see. Next come the two freshmen, the girl named Tina singing an enjoyable version of Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’. The buzz over the song confuses Will sometimes; he remembers a song in high school or college with the same name by a different singer, but no one was writing news articles about it. Finally, the final person to sign-up, Artie, wheels himself onto the stage from the wings and sings one of Jay-Z's latest.

Will is sighing to himself, preparing to call his experiment in running the glee club a failure, when he hears the doors at the back of the auditorium, and what sounds like a lot of people talking. He sighs again, sure that someone’s overbooked the auditorium, and starts to stand. 

“Are we late?” someone asks from behind him, and Will turns to see who, exactly, entered the auditorium. As he looks, he can feel his jaw drop. In the front of the group are three of the sophomore football players, the one with the mohawk in the middle, arms draped over the other two, and it’s clear he’s the one who spoke. 

The mohawked boy’s eyebrow goes up as Will catalogs the rest of them. The head cheerleader is there, standing with two more football players. Behind those six are three more Cheerios and, in the very back, two additional football players, both of whom seem more reluctant to be standing there than the other nine. 

“Auditions started well over fifteen minutes ago,” Rachel Berry says officiously, and Will mentally groans. There are eleven people standing in the auditorium, wanting to join the glee club, and she’s going to run them off. 

“We had to go tell Coach and Coach we were missing practice,” the mohawked boy says with a shrug, and he looks at the rest of his group—his _posse_ , Will can’t help thinking. “Lady ‘Cedes, you going to show us how it’s done?” 

The head Cheerio grins at the mohawked boy, then walks down the rest of the stairs and right up onto the stage. “My name is Mercedes Jones, and I’ll be singing ‘R.E.S.P.E.C.T.’”

Will is impressed—very impressed—by her singing, and he can tell from the huffing noises Rachel Berry makes that she, too, is impressed by Mercedes. As soon as Mercedes finishes, the other ten that came in with her make a lot of noise, clapping and whistling, though when Will looks over at them, he realizes it’s mostly four of the five football players that were at the front of the group.

“Whoooo!” whoops the tallest of the football players. “Queen of McKinley!”

The mohawked boy points at the two football players who were standing with the head Cheerio—Mercedes—then looks at Will. “Mike and Matt are going to dance,” he tells Will. 

“Oh,” Will responds, nodding slowly. “That’s fine. Show choir needs dancers, too.” 

“See?” the mohawked boy says to the two who are apparently Mike and Matt, and they walk up to the stage before dancing extremely well to a song that Will has to admit he doesn’t recognize. When the pair finish, there’s more applause and cheering, and Will watches the mohawked boy curiously, wondering who he plans to direct next. A moment later, he gestures at the Cheerios, who walk to the stage as a group. 

“I’m Quinn Fabray,” the blonde without bangs says, and when she introduces herself, one of the reluctant football players claps briefly. “And this is Santana Lopez and Brittany S. Pierce, and we’re going to perform ‘Say a Little Prayer’.” 

They aren’t soloist potential like Mercedes, at least not from what Will can hear of their voices, but they dance well and have good voices, and Will starts to wonder what kind of trick this all is when the mohawked boy sends the reluctant football players to follow the Cheerios. Quinn stays on the stage, Mercedes comes back on stage, and the black reluctant one nudges the white reluctant one, whispering something to him. The white reluctant one steps up to the front and mumbles something in Will’s direction.

“Can you repeat that?” Will asks. 

“Yeah, speak up, Dave Somebody!” the mohawked boy calls out, grinning at the boy, who Will assumes is named Dave. 

“Sorry,” Dave says. He mumbles a little more, scowling in mohawk’s direction, whatever else he’s saying ending in, “California Dreamin’.”

‘California Dreamin’’ is exactly what they sing, doing a fine job hitting the notes, even if the boys don’t enunciate well, and Will thinks they’ll do an excellent job harmonizing and adding more depth to performances. All four vacate the stage, and this time, the mohawked boy himself stands up. 

Will hadn’t really noticed anyone bringing in anything, but when the mohawked boy gets to the stage, Will realizes he’s carrying a guitar, and he pulls the strap over his head as he talks. “I’m Puck, and I’m doing ‘You May Be Right’ by Billy Joel, a famous musical Jew.” With that, he starts playing, doing a better job than Will expected, if he’s being honest. When he finishes, he bows, grinning at his friends, though mostly at the two he was sitting beside. 

Those two both start clapping, the tall one whooping again. Puck—and Will is sure that can’t be the boy’s legal name—points at the tall one as he heads off the stage, still grinning. The tall one comes up to the front next.

“I’m Finn Hudson,” he says, and instead of saying what he’ll be singing, he just starts sing ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’. As Will listens, he begins to suspect he’s somehow found some ringers or else the talent in Lima is deeper than expected. Finn Hudson has a good stage presence and a solid voice. Like his friend Puck, some development of range would be good, but Will is pleased with the results of the auditioning, with only one boy left to go. 

When Finn Hudson finishes, there’s more clapping, and this time Puck whistles before nudging the final one of their group. As Finn walks back over to Puck, he pats the last boy on his shoulder, and then smacks him on the butt. The last boy, who looks small for a football player, blushes as he approaches center stage.

The boy brushes a stray lock of hair from his forehead, surveying the room with a haughty, almost disdainful, expression on his face. He glances over at Puck and Finn, who both smile.

“My name is Kurt Hummel, and I will be singing ‘Defying Gravity’ from _Wicked_.”

Will hears an intake of breath from the direction of Rachel Berry, and when he looks towards her, she’s glaring at Kurt Hummel with great intensity. Will admits to himself that he’s skeptical until a few measures in, but Kurt performs the song with feeling and does hit the highest note in the song without any trouble. 

As soon as he finishes, Finn and Puck leap out of their seats, clapping and shouting, which makes Kurt blush again, though he also looks very pleased with himself and with the audience response. 

After Kurt leaves the stage, Will stands up and turns to address all of them, including Rachel Berry. “Well, those were some great auditions,” he says, trying to use his friendliest smile. “The rehearsal schedule is posted outside the choir room, and I’d love to have all of you join us.” 

“What I’m sure Mr. Schuester means, of course,” Rachel Berry suddenly says, addressing the other students, “is that all of you performed adequately enough to harmonize and accompany me as our featured soloist.” 

Before Will can respond, he hears a loud snort, and realizes it was Puck. “Yeah, bullsh—bullcrap,” he says. “And are you even old enough to be in high school? Didn’t you just get bat mitzvah’d like, a month ago?” 

Rachel Berry stomps her foot. “I’m small for my age!” she retorts. “My bat mitzvah was two years ago, and my dads hosted a wonderful party.” 

“Ohhh,” Puck says, like he’s just realized something, and he nudges Finn and Kurt. “But no. We’re not playing back up, are we?” He looks between Finn and Kurt with an eyebrow raised. 

“Absolutely not,” Kurt says. “Finn?”

“Nope. What they said,” Finn agrees.

“Me ‘n Dave are,” the black reluctant one says, and when the Cheerios turn to look at him, he grins widely at Quinn, who blushes very faintly and smiles at him. 

“I have had years of singing instruction—” 

“Yeah, we don’t care,” Puck interrupts her. He looks behind him almost apologetically before looking back at Rachel Berry. “I mean, some of these guys can fight you themselves, but the three of us and Mercedes aren’t doing this to prop up the—what’s your name again?” 

“My name is Rachel Berry, and you’re Noah Puckerman!” Rachel says angrily. “We went to Hebrew school together for years!” 

“Rachel, right,” Puck continues, unrepentant. “We’re not propping up the Rachel show.” He grins at Will suddenly. “Right?” 

Will’s eyes widen and he nods slowly. “Solos will be distributed fairly,” he says finally. “And auditions will be held when necessary.” 

“You should let Kurt here lead us off at that—what did you say it was?” Puck asks Kurt, dropping his voice and whispering something in Kurt’s ear. Whatever he says, it makes Kurt’s face turn pink again.

“Sectionals,” Kurt says.

“Yeah, Sectionals,” Puck repeats, nodding. “We’ll be at practice. Rehearsals.”

“If we’re suggesting songs for Sectionals, I think that Finn and I should perform ‘You’re The One That I Want’,” Rachel says, shooting a smile at Finn and widening her eyes. “Don’t you agree, Finn?” 

Finn looks slightly panicked. “Uhhhh.”

“Nah, if we need a duet, we’ll let Mercedes pick something awesome—and her own duet partner,” Puck says, smirking at Rachel. “When’s the first rehearsal?”

“Thursday,” Will manages, not sure if he should interrupt what is clearly some kind of establishment of pecking order. 

“See you Thursday,” Puck replies, then looks back at Rachel. “See you Thursday, Rachel.” 

Rachel huffs as Puck leads his posse—and Will is even more confident in that assessment now—out of the auditorium, and Will takes that chance to slip out himself. He has fourteen members, which is more than double his best hopes, and a rehearsal to plan.


End file.
